After an earlier sukkah in Brooklyn in 2011, I painted the SUKKAT SHALOM in Berlin in the summer of 2024. It features the seven ushpizin and seven ushpizot (biblical guests) surrounded by midrashic stories. After the horrible post October 7 year we need encouragement to celebrate our festivals with vigor, with uplifting colors. But due to the global antisemitc climate, the exact location of this sukkah in a back garden was only to be revealed to those who were invited. That’s the world we live in now. My answer to a difficult year is not giving up, like the ushpizin/ot who all went through difficult times but overcame them. Jews must never loose hope, never give up celebrating sukkot, dwelling in temporary and unstable housing for a week, remembering our travels through the desert and through history, galut. The name Sukkat Shalom might not be very unique, but it expresses my hope that we all, Jews and non Jews alike, will eat and celebrate together in the sukkah in a more peaceful and tolerant world.
Link to a longer description of the Sukkah
Shoshannah Jeanne Brombacher (1959) is a prolific author, artist, scholar, and maggidah (spiritual storyteller) from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with a Ph.D. in Jewish Studies. She contributed to projects about Jewish manuscripts, books, and tombstones in Leyden, Amsterdam (Ets Haim Library and Joods Historisch Museum), Jerusalem, the Free University of Berlin, and New York. Her worsening hearing loss forced her to leave the academic world and dedicate herself to her lifelong passion, art and writing. She currently lives in Berlin. Her themes include Jewish lore and legends (Chassidism), travels (the Venice murals), social justice (Nazim, OWS), classical music (Beethoven), poetry, and custom art (weddings, kaddish and bar/bat mitzvah, etc.). Brombacher has participated in, curated and organized international art exhibitions and won several awards and grants for her work (in museums, (private) collections and institutions in all five continents). She is the vice-president of the American Guild of Judaic Art.
Shoshannah Brombacher lives Berlin, Germany and Brooklyn, NY USA